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As a college student, I had a next-door neighbor who was a
fruitarian. A middle-aged man, he was stick-insect thin, so gaunt that
it was almost painful to watch him walking down a snow-covered street.
Still, he seemed to get along fine.

After graduation, I moved to California, where the
milder climate and an abundance of fresh produce made non-traditional
dietary approaches seem more manageable. It was there that I made my
first legitimate effort to become a vegetarian. (A previous college
attempt that centered on pre-mixed pancake batter wasn't successful or
even, for that matter, vegetarian.) I lasted nearly a year before
giving in to the sudden desire for a cheeseburger.

While living in Santa Cruz, a northern California
beach town, I would hear stories about a "breatharian" named Wiley
Brooks, who claimed to subsist on sunshine and prana (life force)
rather than food and water. Legend had it that he was eventually
sighted in the local 7-Eleven devouring a hot dog and Slurpee.

All of which makes today's raw food diets seem
sensible and sane by comparison. In this week's cover story (which
begins on page 17), we talk to both raw food advocates and detractors,
who are united only in their blindness to the wisdom of my as yet
unjustly ignored pancake diet.